Oliver Huntemann H-3

Walking the line between commercial dance music and the so-called “underground” is no simple task, yet Hamburg techno veteran Oliver Huntemann continues to do it with ease. On his third solo album, Huntemann delivers a unique brand of driving, linear techno that is just as likely to be caned by big-room DJs as it is by the minimal crowd. “Rikarda” clicks and clacks along for three minutes until a huge filtered bassline suddenly takes things to a euphoric new level. Impeccably precise and littered with robotic blips and beeps, this isn’t a light-hearted album by any means. H-3 may not be a fun record, but it is the perfect accompaniment for a sweaty night of body jacking.

Tim Exile Listening Tree

In a clear departure from his previous work as an IDM, drum n’ bass, and breakcore producer, Tim Exile’s latest disc delves into the dark side of electro-pop. With production more akin to The Knife than Dan Doormouse, Listening Tree is dense with complicated, schizophrenic layers of vibrant synths. Standout “Family Galaxy” slowly builds into a twisted, kaleidoscopic journey, while “Don’t Think We’re One” openly flirts with the Depeche Mode catalog. The hardest part of listening to Listening Tree is deciding whether to dance or just sit back and absorb the ideas Exile has crammed into each track.

The Long Lost The Long Lost

Well, this is certainly unexpected. The Long Lost is a collaboration between Alfred Darlington (better known as experimental beatmaker Daedelus) and his wife Laura. The project has little or nothing to do electronic noodling or forward-thinking hip-hop—the Darlingtons make light and airy orchestral pop that owes a greater debt to Caetano Veloso than Coldcut. Daedelus really takes a back seat here, ceding center stage to Laura’s delicately cooing vocals and instead focusing on the album’s surprisingly organic compositions—acoustic guitar, percussion that barely rises above a whisper, and wafting flute melodies abound. While The Long Lost may not be a groundbreaking effort, it’s unquestionably a pleasant listen. Apparently, Daedelus can genre-hop just as nimbly as he can juggle beats.

Artist to Watch: L-Wiz

Who:L-Wiz
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Swedish duo Claes Rosén and Ola Näslund (a.k.a. L-Wiz) has been making dubstep since 2000, but they really started turning heads once Caspa released their “Girlfriend” 12” on his Dub Police label in 2006. L-Wiz falls on the mellower end of the genre’s spectrum, although they occasionally indulge in what they call “headcrushing satanic basslines.” A key name in Sweden’s blossoming community, L-Wiz is part of Stockholm’s All Out Dubstep crew, and has also released music on Redvolume, the country’s first dubstep label.

Listen: “Mojito”

Listen: “Prayer Room”

Watch: An Interview with L-Wiz

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mojito

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Mexican Institute of Sound Soy Sauce

Soy Sauce starts on a high note, as album opener “Cumbia” is a toe-tapping electronic update of the classic Colombian rhythm. Unfortunately, from the second track on, Camilo Lara (a.k.a. Mexican Institute of Sound) spends most of his third album taking a disappointing series of missteps. As always, his production and sample choices are on point—Soy Sauce pulls from an impressive array of vintage Latin sounds and seamlessly blends them with crisp and modern electronic sounds. What gets Lara into trouble are his stonerish vocals and generally goofy approach to the music, both of which could be refreshing, but instead grow quickly tiresome, especially on ill-advised efforts like “Sinfonia Agridulce,” an en español cover of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.”

Scott Herren Readies Trilogy of Releases

If you’ve listened to anything by Diamond Watch Wrists, Savath Y Savalas, Piano Overlord, Delarosa and Asora, or Prefuse 73, then you have drunk from the deep musical well of Guillermo Scott Herren. The prolific musician, who currently bounces between residences in Barcelona, New York, and his hometown of Atlanta, GA, cut his musical teeth producing tracks for rappers in the Dirty South before crafting his first album, Sleep Method Suite, under the Delarosa and Asora alias in 1997. Since then, he has released numerous albums and singles, dabbling in punk rock, electronic music, and psychedelia, in addition to experimental hip-hop.

This year, Herren is going above and beyond his past production output by releasing three unique albums in a cycle under various monikers: La Llama, under his Savath y Savalas guise, Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian, as Prefuse 73, and a Diamond Wrist Watch Wrists project, Ice Capped At Both Ends. Three’s a charm, and here’s a little bit about each release.

Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian is out on April 14 on Warp. On this album, Herren recorded to analog Ampex tape, giving the sound an ancient quality not possible to achieve with digital recording. Those eager to put their ears on Herren’s creative offerings can also look forward to guest appearances by fellow Savath Y Savalas member (and co-producer) Robert Carlos Lange, School of Seven Bells’ vocalist Claudia Deheza, drummer Zach Hill, Dimitri Grimm, and Gaslamp Killer.

Ampexian:
01 Periodic Measurements of Infrequent Smiles
02 Hairy Faces (stress)
03 Parachute Panador
04 NoNo
05 Punish
06 Half up Front
07 Sexual Fantasy Scale
08 DEC. Machine Funk all ERA’s
09 Get em High
10 Ampexian Tribe of a Lesser Time
11 When is a good time?
12 Fountains of Spring
13 Whipcream Eyepatch
14 Regalo
15 Rubber Stems
16 Oh Is It
17 Four Reels Collide
18 Fringertip Trajectories
19 Violent Bathroom Exchange
20 Natures Uplifting Revenge
21 Yuletide
22 Simple Loop Choir
23 No Lights Still Rock – Feat. Dimlite
24 Gaslamp Killer Feedback Text
25 Digan Lo
26 Preperation’s Kids Choir
27 Pitch Pipe
28 Periodic Measurements of Infrequent Frowns
29 Formal Dedications

Next in the lineup, out April 28 on Warp, will be Ice Capped at Both Ends, the debut LP of Diamond Watch Wrists, Herren’s newest collaboration with the aforementioned Hill (Hella, Marnie Stern). The album will focus on organic vocals, guitar, and drums, and cover ’60s European acid-folk, kraut-rock, and American singer/songwriter material.

Ice Capped:
01 My Last Time In This Place
02 Politely
03 One Second Early
04 Onward Push Me Out
05 Diamond Falling Off My Grill
06 Dot Org Green Consumered
07 Start Wrong
08 Simple Love Notes
09 Speculative Forensic Investigation
10 Epedemic Epedemics
11 Taped Up Swagger
12 Ending
13 My Spirit (Japanese Bonus)

Finally, Herren will round out his trilogy on May 12 with another Savath y Savelas release, La Llama, which also marks his Stones Throw debut. Along with Catalan singer/songwriter Eva Puyuelo Muns and multi-instrumentalist Roberto Carlos Lange, he’ll dip into South-American psych-folk music, taking additional inspiration from the indie Brazilian music scene of the ’70s. The album will be released digitally beginning March 16, via the Stones Throw website.

La Llama:
01 Intro
02 La Llama
03 Las 7 Sendas
04 Carajillo
05 Una Cura
06 Pavo Real
07 El Colleccionista
08 Sounds of Bowery
09 La Loba
10 Pajaros en Cadaques
11 Me Voy
12 Untitled
13 Barceloneta
14 Postlude
15 No Despierta
16 Adeu

Loer Velocity “Seasonal”

Loer Velocity’s Uninfatuated EP, which is free to download here, tracks the rise and fall of the New York-based emcee’s relationship with a special someone over the course of one year. Set to sexy, soulful background music, LV’s lyrics trip and glide alternately through the seasons in “Seasonal.”

Seasonal

tUnE-yArDs “Sunlight”

Experimental, experimental, experimental. That more or less sums up the music Merrill Garbus creates under the name tUnE-yArDs, a moniker she adopted, capital letters and all, in 2007. “Sunlight,” off Garbus’ recently released album BiRd-BrAINs, was made using just a hand-held voice recorder, ukulele, and some noisy, off-balance drums.

Tune Yards – Sunlight

Podcast 77: Odd Nosdam: Nofoolisnotaintready

No, that’s not a typo in the header. It’s just the phrase Odd Nosdam chose when naming this mix, and the 17 tracks here are equally as quirky and off-kilter. Berkeley, CA-based David P. Madson—who recently released the T.I.M.E. soundtrack, in which he scored 13 tracks to match the moves of 13 different skateboarders—curated a supremely mellow and incredibly eclectic mix for the latest installment of the XLR8R podcast. In very few hands do the likes of Greek folk singer Marika Papagika, drone-ambient queen Valet and indie-rock outfit Grandaddy peacefully coexist together. Madson strings these, and more, together seamlessly.

As always, the hour-long mix is exclusive to XLR8R.

Madson’s T.I.M.E. release is out now via anticon.

Nofoolisnotaintready:
01 The Books – “It’s Musiiiiic!”
02 Mr. Dibbs & Jel – “Rhythmic Soarin”
03 Kevin Ayers – “Oleh Oleh Bandu Bandong”
04 Grandaddy – “Go Progress Chrome”
05 Dorothy Ashby – “For Some We Loved”
06 Valet – “We Went There”
07 Grouper – “You Never Came”
08 Marika Papagika – “Zmirneikos Balos”
09 Tortoise – “Whitewater”
10 Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Runite Castles”
11 McDonald & Giles – “Birdman Flies!”
12 Mulatu Astatke – “Ene Alantchi Alnorem”
13 Ween – “Pollo Asado”
14 Bre’r – “Birf Crawl”
15 Philip Jeck – “Wholesome”
16 Kevin Ayers – “Beware Of The Dog”
17 Deerhoof – “This Magnificent Bird Will Rise”

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Podcast_Mix_2009_03_12

Kissogram “Deserter (Shir Khan Remx)”

In the hands of producer, DJ, and megamixer Shir Khan, this track—made by Berlin-based new-wave band Kissogram—becomes an old-school-style disco cut in which Cock Rock Disco’s Otto Von Shirach lends his own vocal hook to the mix. Suffice to say that, thanks to those vocals, the storyline of the track, about a solider breaking away from the army, becomes slightly skewed.

Kissogram – Deserter (Shir Khan Remix)

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